Chapter 3 Bennett
Bennett
“I think the fuck not,” I tell Clover.
“We have no other choice,” she snaps back with a little stomp of her foot. Ah, there’s the know-it-all brat I once knew. “The beds must be unbolted. We are not sleeping in the same bed.”
“And you don’t think that will look suspicious to people?”
“Plenty of married couples sleep in separate beds. And who would even be in our room anyway?” With her phone in hand, she crawls under the bed. “We have to separate these beds. Don’t you have a toolbox?”
“Okay, first off: Sexist of you to assume that every man owns a toolbox. Second: I happen to have one out in my car. But I am not sleeping in a twin bed. And we are not sleeping in two beds.”
There’s a clunk under the bed and then an “Ow!”
“Fucking hell,” I mutter as I get down and army crawl under from the other side.
“Oh, so you are helping now?” She’s flat on her tummy and inspecting the leg at the foot of the bed where the two wooden frames are conjoined.
“Definitely not. I just came down here to make sure you’re not concussed because that would be very inconvenient for me as your husband.”
She looks up at me, the phone lighting her face and a vicious response on the tip of her tongue, just as a firm knock sounds at our door. “Come in!” she yells.
The door opens and it occurs to me that the only visible thing at the moment is my feet sticking out the side of this bed.
“Hello?” The voice is distinctly low. “Everything okay under there?”
“This discussion is not over,” Clover hisses before shimmying out.
“Feels over to me,” I manage to respond with a grunt as I crawl back.
The guy at the door is a fucking giant. His shaggy black hair blends in with his worn black T-shirt and jeans, and I think it’s fair to say he’s never smiled a day in his life.
He wears wire frame glasses that you’d get punched for in high school but must play really well with the college girls who want to get drunk and talk about their Myers-Briggs type.
“I’m Dylan, the fifth-floor resident adviser.
” His lips hardly move as he speaks, making it clear he would rather be anywhere but here.
Me too, man.
I glance over to find Clover blushing and my chest puffs out like a fucking ape. I step up beside her as the dutiful husband I am pretending to be. “Bennett,” I tell the RA. “And this is Clover.”
Beside me, Clover audibly swallows, making it perfectly clear that she would climb this guy given the chance.
“Is there a problem with your bed?” Dylan asks.
Clover takes a step back and motions to her side made up with her comforter and sheets while my side is still bare. A far cry from the picture of a marital bed. “We were trying to disconnect the frames.”
The expression on Dylan’s face—and I use the term expression generously because the man is so mechanical in voice and movement—is puzzling. He checks his clipboard, his head tilted to the side. “I’ve got you two signed up for a married dorm.”
Beside me, Clover’s breath catches, and I am just a little pleased to be right that I’ve got her number when it comes to this guy.
“We were disconnecting them to reconnect them,” I explain quickly. “The beds felt a little loose.” I shake the foot of the bed, and of course the thing is firmer than the drop deadline for classes. “We just didn’t want to wake up the whole floor with our newlywed escapades, you know?”
Clo makes a shabby attempt at playing her grimace off as a smile.
“No, actually, I don’t know,” he says. “But I can call maintenance out if you need me to.”
Clover nods. “That would be totally—”
“Unnecessary,” I finish for her.
Dylan shrugs, his gaze still bored. “Right. You both already signed off on the housing contract, but I’m leaving a hard copy here for you. The housing office is trying to keep tabs on all the non-trad students, so don’t be surprised if they pop in from time to time.”
He opens the door and some very loud music blares from down the hall. “My fucking eardrums,” he mutters.
It’s just the two of us again and the noise from the hallway dulls as the door shuts.
Clover stands with her arms crossed over her chest. “We are not sleeping in this bed together.”
“Hate to break it to you, wifey, but I’m not sleeping on the floor.”
Her cheeks flood with a delectable blush, and I wonder what other things I can do to make her rosy with color.
“We need some rules,” Clover says, and then more to herself, “This is such a fucking joke.” She plops down on her side of the bed and takes the notebook off her dresser.
“As you know, I plan on resolving this little housing situation before the end of the semester, so we can just go ahead and schedule our divorce for the last day of finals if that works for you.” With that said, she scratches December 9th across the top of the page.
“Fine,” I tell her as I slump against my desk with my legs and arms crossed. “First rule: one bed. Even you can admit that there’s no great way to explain two beds if we plan to keep this story going.”
She looks over the bed with a forlorn expression and pushes up the sleeves of her sweatshirt to reveal the familiar smattering of freckles on her arms. “At least it’s a big bed.”
“And we’ll need to get matching bedding at some point.”
“It’s very European to have two different duvets,” she says, catching the way my brow arches before a defeated groan fills her chest. “Fine. But I have a rule of my own.”
She begins to write and I stand up to watch over her shoulder. Her hair swings out in front of her face, and my fingers itch to tuck it behind her ear. Thankfully, she does it herself before I make an ass of myself.
No bringing hookups home.
She gives a pointed look, like that rule will be some sort of challenge for me especially.
Her opinion of me is so incredibly low, and it’s unfortunately earned. “I would never do that, and I’m insulted by the fact that you think I would.”
She has the decency to look guilty for just a moment and offers me the marker. “Well, what’s your next rule?”
“That’s it for now. Maybe the rules should be an ongoing sort of thing.”
“Excellent.” She makes a show of closing the notebook.
“All right, I’m going out to meet some friends at a party.”
She perks up at the word party, and before she can even get the question out, I’m shaking my head.
After today, I need a drink and some romantic alone time in the shower to jack off in peace.
Seeing as my privacy is currently compromised, I’m going to have to settle for a drink.
There’s no way I can take Clover to a college party full of lecherous frat guys eager for a first-year to pounce on and still manage to have fun.
“It’s not like I need you to get into a party,” she says.
“No, just the good ones. Besides, you need your beauty sleep. You only have one first day of college.”
She rolls her eyes, but I can see the fight draining from her as the nerves over tomorrow begin to settle in.
“Don’t wait up,” I tell her with a wink.
Tonight, Julian took the lead on locating a party to kick off the semester, which explains why I am sitting in the middle of a crumbling three-story Victorian that smells like patchouli.
“I love theater majors,” Julian says as a guy I vaguely recognize as one of his spring semester hookups curls against him and nibbles at his ear.
He nods toward Tex, who is in the kitchen talking to a pixie-like girl with long, strawberry-blond waves that skim her lower back. She looks like she just walked out of a Renaissance festival.
“Girls love a shy guy,” I tell him. “The whole Southern manners thing goes a long way too.”
“It’s pretty hot,” Julian confirms.
The party is so low-key that it’s more of a get-together, which is a nice change of pace after last year.
There was a huge bash over at 1919 Hemphill tonight, which we were not invited to—no surprise there.
We got a few other invites, including some from frat houses and one event co-hosted by a bunch of prelaw and marine biology majors.
But the theater majors and art weirdos have some good music, decent weed, and a few kegs.
Plus, any party hosted by this crowd is always one step away from turning into a poly compound, and that’s entertaining at least.
“Incoming,” Julian whispers.
But it’s not enough warning to prepare me for the lanky beauty with brown curls who welcomes herself to the armrest of my chair and drapes her legs across my lap.
“Vanya,” I say as she brushes a lock of hair off my forehead. “It’s been a while.”
She smirks, but her chocolate-brown eyes harden a little as she says, “Yeah, I think the last time I saw you, your pretty little bare ass was sneaking out of my room in the middle of the night.”
“I had a final the next day,” I tell her.
“That you were exempt from,” she reminds me. “I would know. I was your Intro to Sociology TA, remember?”
I give her the boyish grin that has gotten me out of trouble many times.
I slept around a lot last year, but Vanya was very intent on coaching me in and out of the classroom and I’m a better lay for it.
She’s finishing grad school this semester and then plans on doing her PhD dissertation on the rise and downfall of monogamy, which sounds hot if you’re a guy looking to get his dick wet, but in reality means that every hookup ends with a joint (which she hogs) and a long lecture on how Western culture is the biggest killjoy of all time.
“How was your summer as an au pair?” I ask.
“Oh, fine.” She sighs and leans her head on my shoulder. “Until the mother and father tried to sleep with me.”
“Independently?” Julian asks, his interest piqued.
She grins. “At first, yes. But then … let’s just say it eventually turned out to be a restorative marital experience.”
Julian’s eyes light up. “Speaking of—”
My gaze cuts to him before he can say another word. I actually think Vanya would be impressed by how Clover and I are using marriage to game the system, but she still works for the university and if all this goes up in smoke, I won’t let it be my fault—and another reason for Clover to hate me.
He rolls his eyes and turns to the guy who is practically in his lap now. “Let’s go find a surface to defile.”
Vanya laughs and cards her hands through my hair again as she sinks down farther into my lap. “What about you?” she asks. “Any interest in kicking off the semester with a bang? Literally.”
My dick twitches at her offer as I mindlessly play with the ring on my left hand.
Ah, shit. The ring on my left hand.
I don’t know what the ethics of infidelity are when your real marriage is actually fake, but things with Clover are complicated as it is. I told her I wouldn’t bring anyone back to our dorm, of course. But we never established any sort of rules around sleeping with other people.
Vanya is beautiful, and we have had very, very good sex in the past, which is why—despite my biological reaction—I am concerned to find that I don’t feel like indulging.
It wouldn’t be a good look, I decide. If and when people find out that we’re married, sleeping with other people would discredit our marriage.
“I’ll have to take a rain check.” My hands curl around her waist and I lift her up just enough for me to stand and then place her in my recently vacated armchair. “But I guarantee there are plenty of people in this house who would love to be your mistake tonight.”
She pouts and I give her a quick kiss on the forehead before saying a brief goodbye to Tex, who is happily receiving a full-on sermon from his little pixie about the importance of male contraception.
On my walk back to campus, there is a line of students waiting to rub the bronze statue of Crumpets the goat, Wexley’s unofficial thirteenth founder, for good luck this semester. I feel a little bad that I didn’t skip the party and bring Clover to participate in the tradition.
It seems wrong to be going to our ancient dorm with its communal bathrooms and shitty, shitty beds. Especially when I have a whole third of a town house and a plush mattress that costs more money than many of the cars in the student parking lot.
But for better or worse, I’ve always secretly enjoyed watching Clover get her way. And if helping her start college on time and finding some small sliver of redemption only costs me a marriage license, a stiff neck, and a bathing ritual that necessitates shower shoes, I suppose I can oblige.